Rice to Riches and other places of happiness

Hi everyone! I don't know what winter has been like in your neck of the woods (if you don't have winter now, don't rub it in!), but here in New York, we've had a pretty mild winter with the occassional dump of snow. Even though most New Yorkers would say that this winter has been fairly tropical compared to what they are used to, Ian and I are grateful for the graduated transition to snow country after 5 plus years of combined Okinawan sub-tropical weather and Leeds weather, which I wouldn't exactly call balmy, but they did only have one or two dustings a year (which at the time, were cruel reminders of the beautiful possibility of snow days).

You'll be happy to hear that Ian and I take this transition to snow country very seriously (cough) and finally broke down but last week and purchased a windshield scraper for the car. This came about after a certain turn of events where we found ourselves having to use our shoes to scrape the ice from the car windows a few weeks back when we went to Philly to visit our family. The shoe-scraper incident taught us the valuable lesson that you have to be prepared when the weather ices up because you never know when it will happen when you are away from home and your trusty kitchen spatula is unavailable to do the job.

Oh, big news! If you haven't heard already, Ian got a job! This was a big answer to prayer for us. I'm sure Ian will want to write a bit about it on here when his head is done spinning from all of the information he has had to take on board during his whirlwind interview process and official first few weeks on the job. If you get a chance, write and congratulate him! Yay, Ian!

We've had a fun month - where did February go? Ian got his job, we just bought our 2nd car (since we both work in two very opposite directions), I've been busy giving midterms and preparing a big exchange field trip for my students down to a Japanese school and shopping mall in New Jersey and we've started going down to the city more often to explore and hang out with friends down there. Our friends Phil and Kumiko Goldstein (friends from Okinawa that live in Brooklyn) introduced us to a bunch of ex-Jet couples, so it has been really fun getting together with them and talking about the good ol' days in Japan. Here's a bunch of us at Phil's 30th birthday party post-Korean BBQ and pre-karaoke!

There's nothing like beating the cold weather by eating good food in the company of good people. Here's our takoyaki party at Phil and Kumi's place with Kayoko and Rob. Kumi and Ian and I broke out our sanshins for a bit - somehow singing about Okinawa makes me feel a bit warmer.





We've also been exploring the city a bit and scoping out some new eats. New York is great for a lot of reasons, but one reason we've come to love is the food! It seems like everyone loves eating here, or even just talking about food. For Valentine's Day, Ian and I went to a local Japanese place called Wasabi in Nyack that was fantastic. Think trendy nuevo-Japanese cuisine with techno playing in the background. We had the most amazing jalapeno yellowtail dish there with lobster tempura and a rainbow roll. Mmm.

This past weekend I had to go into the city for a Japanese test, so afterwards we went to Chinatown for some delicious noodles and dim sum. Later on, we met up with everyone and went to this rice pudding restaurant called Rice to Riches. I think they had at least 20 different kinds of rice pudding there, (!) which made me contemplate gorging myself to gain a few wintery pounds to keep myself warm (it was very cold this weekend). We also tried Burmese food for the very first time at one of Kayoko and Rob's favorite places, Mingala, in the East Village. We followed up with a bubble tea at Saint's Alp Tea House that sent me back to my Quickly days in Okinawa. All in all, it sounds like we spent all day eating (which we basically did - but hey, it was really cold out!), but honestly, I can't believe how little money we spent doing that. I love New York!